As part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, the Egyptian-American comedian turned filmmaker Ahmed Ahmed, whose new film Just Like Us documents a tour of Western standup comics to the Middle East, joined DFI’s Executive Director Amanda Palmer and an FPS audience in New York for a lively and funny Q&A.

Just Like Us took a group of seasoned standups, including several of Middle Eastern origin, to Dubai, Riyadh, Beirut and Cairo – places without a long-established tradition of standup comedy, and where cultural values might not exactly reconcile with those of the performers.

Will they be able to adapt their acts to local norms – and, for that matter, will they even need to?

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